


One Word

by thedevilchicken



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Cunnilingus, F/F, Letters, Political Alliances, Seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:34:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22527931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Calanthe said no only until she said yes.
Relationships: Calanthe/Tissaia de Vries
Comments: 7
Kudos: 61
Collections: Femflash February 2020





	One Word

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ElasticElla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElasticElla/gifts).



> Set in a canon-divergent AU where Tissaia persuaded Calanthe to accept a mage in Cintra, and Nilfgaard didn't take the city as a consequence.

Calanthe said no only until she said yes. 

Cintra didn't want a mage, but that didn't mean the mages didn't want Cintra. Over the years, they sent envoys; over the years, their envoys were returned. And then, Tissaia de Vries arrived. 

The Lioness of Cintra had a reputation, even then. She was sitting on her throne in her golden armour when Tissaia swept into the room, flecks of blood on metal and smudged against her skin. Tissaia had seen worse. She'd seen less promising. 

She didn't curtsy when she said, "Your majesty." She didn't say it was an honour or that she was pleased to meet her. She gave no excuses for her unplanned and uninvited visit. No bowing. No scraping. She stood, and she looked her in the eye, and waited. 

"I don't remember calling for you, mage," Calanthe said. 

"You didn't, majesty," Tissaia replied. "Yet here I am."

The room fell silent. Drinkers ceased drinking. Dancers ceased dancing. And Queen Calanthe eyed her from her throne. Then she laughed out loud and said, "I'm going to change. Come with me, mage. You can explain yourself in private." 

When Calanthe stood up and clattered past her in her armour, Tissaia turned and followed after. When Calanthe's servants stripped her of her armour, Tissaia sat and watched. When Calanthe dipped a cloth into a bowl of steaming water and began to wash the blood and grime of battle from her skin, Tissaia watched that, too. 

"If you've come to ask us if we want a mage at court, the answer's no, just like it always is," Calanthe said. She glanced over her shoulder, naked, as a drop of water ran down her back and faded into nothing by her bare backside. She raised her brows. "Is that what you came for?"

"Yes." 

Calanthe turned. She raised her brows and set her damp hands on her hips. "Then you'll be leaving disappointed, mage." 

Tissaia looked her slowly up and down. "Only partially, I'd say," she said, and then she stood. Calanthe let her move in close and run her fingertips across her collarbones. When she reached one hand down between Calanthe's thighs, the queen caught her wrist and kept it there. 

"Don't think I'll change my mind because you're pretty, mage," Calanthe said. 

"Majesty, I'd be disappointed if you did," Tissaia replied. When she pulled back her hand, her fingers traced Calanthe's slit and made her shiver. Tissaia smiled. Calanthe's wary eyes went sharp, and Tissaia turned away, and she pulled a gold-nibbed quill from her cloak and set it on the desk. 

"Write with this then burn the paper," she said. "The message will find its way to me." And then she left, just as dramatically as she'd arrived, with Calanthe of Cintra standing naked in her wake.

The first note, not a minute later, fluttered down at Tissaia's feet; on it were the words, _Fuck you_. Tissaia laughed and, when she wrote back once she'd returned to Aretuza, the note read, _With great vim and verve, Majesty. When you take a mage into the Cintran court_.

 _You should have stayed for the ball_ , one note said, perhaps a year after they met. _I'd have liked to have seen if that perfect posture comes naturally or if it's just the stick that's up your arse_.

Tissaia laughed and then wrote back, _Your majesty is welcome to find out, of course. You need only say the word._

A note fell onto her desk one stormy winter morning. When she picked it up, the writing said, _So: does the dress come off or is that something they put on that never changes, like your pretty face?_

Tissaia tapped her fingertips against her lips then she wrote back, _Your majesty is welcome to find out, of course. I think you know the price._

A note fluttered down onto her bed one night and when she conjured light, it read, _I'm imagining your pretty mouth between my thighs, mage. How does that make you feel?_

Tissaia slipped one hand between her legs, under her sheets; when she wrote back, when she burned the note and sent it on its way to Cintra, that's where her hand still was. _It fills me with anticipation_ , she wrote. _If only your country were as welcoming to mages as is your majesty's cunt_.

They wrote for years. Sometimes Calanthe's notes were curt and to the point; sometimes they were wordier, and Tissaia grew to understand her moods from length as well as content. A full page of her haphazard hand meant boredom: no new border defence to mount or rebellions to put down, no blood sprayed across her armour drying tacky, only the tedium of rule. Short meant excitement. When the notes arrived, at her feet or on the table at her elbow or settling on her chest in bed at night, she could almost smell the Cintran ink just underneath the ashes. 

They wrote for years. Sometimes Calanthe's notes were curt: _I'm thinking about your tongue, mage _, or, _I think I'd like to fuck you with the hilt of my sword. Would you object to that?_ Sometimes her notes were wordier: she'd talk about a ball, or battle, or tell her what she'd done with her pretty new serving girl because the rectoress of Aretuza was too fucking high and mighty to just visit her without a contract. Tissaia told her that she knew her terms, but that didn't stop her teasing. And Calanthe's notes never stopped for long. __

__And then, last year, a note arrived. It fell out of the air onto the council table and the others paused as Tissaia smiled. There was only one word written there, but it needed no further explanation: Calanthe had said no only until she said _yes_. Cintra would have a mage at last. _ _

__Kings and queens came to Aretuza for their mages. They danced with them in the hall, all chivalry and ritual and magic. Then Calanthe came, on her horse, in her armour, and once she'd stripped it off, she didn't bother changing; she borrowed a doublet from one of her knights and pulled it on over her tunic. She didn't dance with her new mage. She smiled in pure self-satisfaction and she held out her hand to Tissaia instead. Tissaia, for her part, did not decline._ _

__That night, as the others were still dancing, Tissaia took Calanthe by the hand and led her from the hall. In Calanthe's quarters, while Calanthe watched from the foot of the bed, she stripped naked in the candlelight. She let down her hair and Calanthe smiled, all teeth. Once Calanthe had pulled off her clothes, Tissaia kissed her lips then pushed her down and kissed the other pair between her thighs. When she parted them with the pads of her thumbs, Calanthe was already wet._ _

__"I think I've been wet since you left Cintra," Calanthe said, with her fingers tight in Tissaia's hair. "Will you just fucking get on with it?"_ _

__Tissaia laughed. Then she did exactly as she was told._ _

__They didn't send a new mage to Cintra. Tissaia asked Yennefer and, for reasons known only to Yennefer herself, she agreed to go. Three years ago now, the mages and the northern kingdoms put down Nilfgaard at the gates of Cintra. Yennefer left again, a witcher at her heels, but what she'd been sent to do was done. Tissaia's proud._ _

__And now, Tissaia visits Cintra twice every year. Calanthe leaves her crown on the desk in her chambers and she slips out of the city; she takes Tissaia with her, and they walk in the woods outside the city walls. In the snowy winter chill, Tissaia takes off her gloves and slips her hands under Calanthe's clothes. Calanthe's breath is hot mist on the air as Tissaia's fingers press between her thighs._ _

__"Is this what you want, your majesty?" Tissaia asks._ _

__"Yes," Calanthe says, as she rests back against a nearby tree. Her eyes close and, just like the first time, she takes Tissaia's wrist to keep her there between her thighs._ _

__" _Yes_ ," she says, like there was never any other word, like there weren't years of _no_. So long has passed that both words seem devoid of meaning, but the way Calanthe speaks makes her meaning clear. _ _

__Soon, she will return to Aretuza, and all their words will be ink and ash. But now, Tissaia presses her lips against Calanthe's, and understands that their words matter less than their actions do._ _


End file.
